BAIT FARANSA MUSEUM

Something very special has been woven over the years between Oman and France, a history where strategic thinking and commercial interests are intertwined. This "house of France", which was the heart and theater of this diplomatic and human chronicle, was originally the residence of a niece of Sultan Said, Ghaliah bint Salim. In 1896, Sultan Faysal proposed to France to install his first consul, Paul Ottavi, Corsica, the first of a series of thirteen, until 1920. As early as the 17th century, during sugar expeditions in the Indian Ocean, French ships anchored in the roadstead, the last point of call after Gorée, Good Hope, Sofala, Reunion Island and Zanzibar. At the beginning of the 19th century, relations took shape and in 1894 the decision was taken to send a southern off-roader previously stationed in Mogador (now Essaouira, Morocco), the famous Ottavi. Enter his office, reconstituted thanks to diplomatic archives and documents lent by the agents' descendants, discover the galleries of ships, costumes, maps and treaties, observe the astonishing parallels between French and Omani traditions, especially with Lorient and Marseille. In those days, the ladies of the region were not wearing raven veils, daring bright colours and patterns unthinkable nowadays; we will go, one day or another, to visit the Souleiado Museum in Tarascon to realize the aesthetic cousinage of the Indian women, these Provençal fabrics under oriental influence. Two treaties sealed the Franco-Omani friendship, the first in 1807 and the second, much more detailed and extensive, in 1844. Two years later, Omani captains with establishments in French colonies or territories were granted the privilege of sailing under the tricolour flag. In 1989, Sultan Qaboos, on a state visit to Paris, announced to President Mitterrand that he was making the former consulate available as a museum dedicated to bilateral relations. A unique establishment, without equivalent in other friendly countries, which was inaugurated by the two Heads of State on 29 January 1992. As a reminder that in heroic times the far-off lands were a priesthood, don't miss the French administrative documents in the consular office that detail the stays of the various representatives, and sometimes their sad fate: a first was repatriated because he "went mad"; a second was "murdered by heat stroke"; a third died "as a result of furunculosis".